Iceland dilemma.

You might want to go online and see pictures, etc. of Iceland. It sounds as if it's a beautiful place.

My cousin was stationed there as a U.S. Marine guarding our Embassy. And he absolutely loved the people.

A compromise would be to fly to Europe on IcelandAir and take advantage of their free layover offer for a few days.

Iceland is an amazing place to visit. First of all, that scenery is stunning- lava fields, horses, glaciers, and more. You shouldn't miss it. If you go between Sept and April, there is also the aurora borealis which is incredible. Who says you have to stay glued to your wife every minute? Let her go out in the rental car to take photos while you enjoy other activities. Do you like cycling or ice climbing, riding horses, caving, bird watching or whale watching? You can do all of that and much more on your own while she's off taking photos or she might like to go along and take photos while enjoying those activities with you. Do you like museums? They have zoos, aquariums, botanical gardens, and a slew of museums ranging from a bird museum, cultural museums and a boat/ship museum to a museum of natural history and even a photography museum (Akranes Photografical Museum). Do you like to attend festivals, see movies, listen to music, attend theater performances? You can do all that in Iceland. Do you like to eat out? Iceland has restaurants serving vegetarian, American, Thai, Japanese, Chinese, Mexican, Korean, French, Spanish, Indian, Italian, and other ethnic foods. You could fill up a year and not experience it all. As a happily married woman, if my husband was excited to share a place he had enjoyed with me, you couldn't keep me from enthusiastically planning to go. That's love!

Thanks for the replies guys, you've made me feel better about Iceland.
Peter

We're planning a visit for one week this April right now, and are having to cross things off the list, as a week isn't nearly enough time. One advantage of summer is that hiking trails, especially in the interior, will be more accessible, and the 4-wheel-drive roads will be less affected by snow.

We'll be there at the tail-end of the aurora borealis season, but might be just a bit early for seeing the annual influx of puffins and other sea birds. In summer, you'll be there during prime whale-watching time, and Dettifoss, Europe's most powerful waterfall, will be accessible. The glacier bay at Jokulsarlon, always viewable from the ring road, will also have boat trips among the icebergs then, but we'll miss that opportunity, as the boats don't go out before May 15. From images we've seen of Jokulsarlon, your photographer wife might want to spend her whole time there, but what a place! Trip planning this weekend reminded us that rain should be anticipated, so we'll be packing waterproof clothing.

You could even fly over to Greenland for a day or two, but it sounds like Iceland offers more than Greenland in most respects, although less overall ice & snow.

Nordicajester,
I think I speak for all of us when I say that we're glad you're feeling better about spending your vacation in Iceland.

Enough to do for a week? For us, a week may be all we'll have, but it will be not nearly enough time to do or see as much as we want.

We did a brief stopover in Iceland on a trip to Europe in 2009. Why? Because one set of my husband's great grandparents came from there. We were only there 2 nights and one day and vowed we would come back. It was magical.

I've been scheming on a Scandinavian trip for a couple of years, including a 7-night (the maximum allowed) stopover on the way to or from Scandinavia. Why now? Because our youngest daughter, an archaeology grad student at U Mass Boston, will be working on a project there for about 6 weeks this summer, roughly 6 July to 15 August. (Skagafjördur Archaeological Settlement Survey -- http://www.fiskecenter.umb.edu/Projects/Skagafjordur.html) They will be staying in rather primitive quarters called the Butcher's House. We hope to stay relatively close by, and I've identified some possibilities.

As before, we will rent a car. With spending a couple of nights near where she will be working (6 days a week with only one day off), we won't have enough time to drive the entire Ring Road, but I'm sure we can get into enough trouble without doing that.

Last time we took a puddle jumper (and it was jumpy) flight from Reykjavik to Vestmannaeyjar (the Westman Islands) where my husband's immigrant ancestors came from. It was the first week of September and we were too late to see the puffins, but the island was amazing. I was freezing most of the time, so I didn't get out of the van in some places, but I was fascinated nonetheless. I remember the volcanic eruption on Heimaey in 1973. This is a link to information about it if you do not -- http://icelandmag.com/article/westman-islands-are-pompeii-north.

This is a link to the blog entry so long ago (2009) of our time in Iceland -- http://travelswithtrout.blogspot.com/2009/11/intro-and-iceland.html. You can click on most of the pictures to see them bigger, but some don't seem to cooperate, probably due to my ignorance about posting them back then.

If you haven't looked at what Trip Advisor says, this link could get you started -- http://www.tripadvisor.com/Attractions-g189970-Activities-ReykjavikCapitalRegion.html. Besides our side trip to Vestmannaeyjar, we only had time for a brief visit (complete with water massage) at the Blue Lagoon and a brief drive in the area. I'm definitely looking forward to a longer visit.

Go to Iceland and take it all in. There is no place like it.

Thanks all. To aid in making this trip happen I thought we'd book a self drive tour. the tour operator supplies rental car, cellphone, gps and makes accommodation bookings for each night . Cost wise this isn't the best deal, but it seems less stressful than trying to book rooms in back country Iceland, or is that not any more difficult than any other country ? Normally I'd spend weeks researching and booking for our holidays, but there's somthing about those compound un pronounceable words and proper names that intimidate me.
Peter

Hi again Peter- we're considering a mix of hired day tours (a 2-day excursion with Icelandic Mountain Guides that takes in the South Shore, Jokulsarlon, an overnight in the country, and a glacier hike) and self driving (the Golden Circle). Iceland isn't a cheap place to visit, but in the you-get-what-you-pay-for idea, the relative convenience and security if something goes wrong could make your organized self-drive package a bargain. Our reseach indicates that summer weekends could be particularly hard to get a place to sleep, if you don't have a place reserved and it's a popular place for weekend visitors out of Reykjavík.

In addition to the rotted shark snacks, don't forget about the singed sheep's heads and the pickled ram's testicles ;-p

Oh, yum! Who could say "no" to such treats.

I'm with Norma on this: the pickled portion of the ram's anatomy, that alone would make Iceland worth a week.

Peter, if all these great ideas don't, for whatever reason, pan out, I do hope you'll cut her some slack. I am forever running to catch up to my wife after stopping to take a quick ( ;-) ) photo; it's how I get a workout in while on vacation. She agrees to not turn left or right without giving me a heads up...
I do agree that it's not necessary to be together 24/7, and we have discussed this idea as well, hoping to put it into action next trip.

And Kent, take heart that pickled foods are excellent for the health of your gut!

Mmmmmmmmm sheep's head. To be honest if it makes my goddess wife happy I'm in, in spite of my moaning. The up side of Iceland in July is it will be nice and cool compared to South Western Ontario's 90F and 80% humidity. Peter
As an aside how's the trout fishing on the island?

The Lonely Planet Iceland guidebook mentions that even a 1-day fishing license is expensive. That may be another activity where an outfitter service could be practical.